Losing Ground

Here I am citing the Washington Times again, not something I do with great regularity. But they have what should be a media blockbuster – but they are the only ones reporting it. The super-whamadyne new Senate compromise immigration "reform" bill will have a whopping effect on illegal immigration according to none other than the Congressional Budget Office.

The Senate's immigration bill will only reduce illegal immigration by about 25 percent a year, according to a new Congressional Budget Office report, Stephen Dinan will report Tuesday in The Washington Times.

The bill's new guest-worker program could lead to at least 500,000 more illegal immigrants within a decade, said the report from the CBO, which said in its official cost estimate that it assumes some future temporary workers will overstay their time in the plan, adding up to a half-million by 2017 and 1 million by 2027.

"We anticipate that many of those would remain in the United States illegally after their visas expire," CBO said of the guest-worker program, which would allow 200,000 new workers a year to rotate into the country.

And in a blow to President Bush's timetable, the CBO said the "triggers" — setting up the verification system, deploying 20,000 U.S. Border Patrol agents to duty and constructing hundreds of miles of fencing and vehicle barriers — won't be met until 2010.

Those triggers must be met before the temporary worker program could begin, and Mr. Bush had hoped to have them completed about the time he leaves office in January 2009.

And this has finally convinced Ed Morrisey that the "compromise" is a sham and he is backing away, rapidly. Don Surber is reporting that Mitch McConnell will not step away from this monstrosity. And the fallout will be very, very ugly when the voters have their say. Both parties are going to suffer from this little fiasco.

My advice: Call. Your. Senators. Make it very clear that you want the problem of illegal immigration solved – but securing the border is the first order of business. And that you WILL not vote for a Senator that compromises that. A supposed solution that will – at best – reduce the problem by 25% is a joke and must not be passed into law.